Author: Jen Rios

Whilst I Slept

Yesterday, in preparation of Lent, I was given confession, anointing of the sick (to help me with my osteoporosis diagnosis that I have just received but I will see my naturopath on February 21 and we’ll go to the endocrinologist on May 16th) and first communion by a priest from Divine Child, Fr. Jeremy.

I felt extremely blessed yesterday, and I felt God’s presence in my house because I have NOT had communion in years. I have been a member of the Virtual Front Pew with Fr. Mike schmitz on YouTube since week 17 of ordinary time 2021. It felt really good because I was ready for Lent!

But then this happened to my house today whilst I slept. I didn’t know what had happened at all until it was way over. My Mom came into my room and explained it to me. I was just waking up but it was so huge of a story that I told her I had to see the pictures!

I sent these pictures to two of my friends, but I prefaced it by saying that I am going to send the ‘after’ pictures first. I will do that here as well. My Mom is an excellent photographic journalist!:


She is also an excellent videographer, which I will show you right now. My body feels like there’s electricity surging through it! I told my Mom that I didn’t think that I would feel God anymore than I did yesterday but then today is today!:

I tried posting the video here, but it’s too large so I took a bunch of screenshots to give you the gist of what happened:







These next two are so dramatic in the video!!!:


The car was smoking!!!:


I couldn’t believe it when I saw this! My property is completely unscathed!!! The driver of that white car was 17 and he was coming out of Edsel Ford and driving Eastward on Rotunda. There was a red truck that T-boned him as they were turning onto Pelham and this is what happened.

He was still in the car when my Mom videoed everything. When he got out, she said that he was completely dazed and she told him to get checked out in the hospital. He thought that she was going to yell at him, but anyone who knows my Mom knows that that’s not how she is!!!

He came back here and knocked on the door after he got out of the hospital and my Mom talked with him in his friend‘s car. He was extremely apologetic and said he would fix the grass but my Mom told him that it’s winter it probably will flatten itself out in the spring when grass starts to grow.

I talked with Sean and he explained that it is because of, “Paula’s tree” that the house is fine. Paula was my neighbor before the current neighbor and she moved probably 10 years ago and before she moved, she put in two poplar trees. I don’t like them at all. but Sean, let me know that that tree took a beating, and it saved our house!!!:

I guess that he is right I think it’s insane how I feel right now! I have never experienced the Glory of God like I am experiencing right now!!! And all of this whilst I slept?!

Rando Tune #56

This was my last year teaching English. I heard a colleague talk about this song with another colleague. They were both on my seventh grade team. I was just about to start teaching Reading. I heard it the other day after I listened to Sheryl Crow and I listened to the entire song!:

After Toby Keith‘s death, I really have been thinking about my short stent in the country music scene!!!

A New Accommodation

I pillaged today like I do every Saturday:

I don’t think that I was prepared for my life to be as small as it is now. But here we are. I’ve had to make a new accommodation in terms of applying Chapstick. I no longer have enough hand control to put the cap of the chapstick back on the tube very easily. This is what I do now:


I have to push the plunger all the way down, so as not to get chapstick everywhere. And this is what it looks like when I put it on:


I don’t apply chapstick like a normal person anymore. I apply at first on my lower lip by just smearing it on, three times. I start on my left and go all the way to my right and back and one more time. I still, however, use the Chapstick in the center of my upper lip, and I go to my left and then I start back in the center again and go to my right. But after I do that, I have to push the plunger all the way down.

What seems to be happening now, is that the days between my pillaging are getting shorter. I’ve never seen my chapstick look like that before, but that’s how it is now I guess.

I Can’t Even Write my Name Anymore

Last night, after I listened to Sheryl Crow, my Apple Music playlist just randomly plays songs. I heard this one yesterday and I finished it today and a flood of memories came back!

This memory is almost 20 years old because I was still teaching English. I think it probably had to be in 2007 or 2008? I remember Mr. Vella came to my classroom after school with his guitar.

I don’t remember the conversation, but I told him that I wanted to learn how to play the guitar! He started playing a Jimmy Eat World song. I told him that if I ever learn to play the guitar, I want to play Melissa Etheridge songs! He was totally weirded out by my answer, but I told him that I love the emotion that she sings with.

Well, I never learned how to play the guitar and I can’t sing anymore anyway. I can’t even write my name anymore! #MSucks!!! 😒😒😒…

And Then the Tears Came.

Yesterday, I was down the YouTube rabbit hole pretty deeply, and I came across this video, and I had to watch it:

I have been a Toby Keith fan since I was serving at Lonestar steakhouse, and Saloon. I always have liked his voice and I was saddened to hear that he had stomach cancer. When I heard that he passed, I was saddened, but I did not cry.

I’ve only cried at two celebrity deaths. The first one is obvious, Beverly, Clary! But I did cry when Sean Connery died as well. I named Sean after him based on that nurse in the hospital who told me that, “Sean Connery is so handsome” when Sean was three days old and did not have a name yet.

I am positive that I will cry at Bono’s death! But I was surprised at that fact, because my Mom and I listened to toby Keith’s Greatest Hits album on loop for months after my Dad died! But then I read this article and then the tears came:

https://people.com/brett-favre-says-toby-keith-told-him-he-quit-chemo-before-his-death-8572210?hid=fb286929162f0335bedeb87159de08ebd0cd718b&did=11890747-20240208&utm_source=ppl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=people-news_newsletter&utm_content=020824&lctg=fb286929162f0335bedeb87159de08ebd0cd718b

I think that I will seriously think about putting all of my favorite Toby Keith songs and a blog post? Maybe just an Apple Music playlist.

My Aunt Rita

I’m really not feeling well handling this osteoporosis stuff so I decided to watch something to keep my mind off of it. I’m feeling kind of nostalgic and my Mom recently bought this movie on Xfinity so I watched it today.:

I have seen this movie since it came out when I was a child. There’s something about the theme song in this movie that I absolutely love! It has always reminded me of my aunt Rita:

I always thought that my aunt Rita dressed like Diane Keaton (who is ALSO left-handed!!!) my aunt died when I was eight and she didn’t have kids. I remembered that I was at a friends house, and I was watching TV while they were in the shower, when he came downstairs and saw that I was watching this movie, he asked me if I was a middle-aged woman?!

Well, I am now, and I really like this movie!!!

Dismissed Again

I had my third virtual Speech Pathology appointment today. I have been tired after all three of those visits! Today, I asked Meira kind of exasperated as to why I was so tired, and she answered simply with, “Well, you HAVE been talking for 45 minutes!”

She did not break up with me, but she dismissed me again! She told me that I am speaking slower than before when she met me in October 2021, but I am still intelligible. She told me that I can text her whenever I want to for accountability and to get another referral when something changes.

I had texted her about me being diagnosed with osteoporosis the day I read it. I told her that “I have that now so…” and she just laughed and told me when I have changes in my speech. She told me about a woman on Instagram with ALS but I told her that I am not cool enough for Instagram! She wants me to watch the Super Bowl this weekend because she knows that I loved football since I have met her but I’m not so sure about that…

Collecting Doctors

Well, today is Monday. My aunt Iris was able to transfer the information from MyChart to an email. I emailed the results to my naturopath. I see him on February 21.

Neda from my internist office, called my Mom’s phone because that is the phone number that I have in my MyChart. She is more reliable to speak over the phone than I am. Dr. Chamas gave me a referral for endocrinology. I made that appointment today. It’s in May.

It looks like I am collecting doctors now. I have had a Neurologist for the entire time that I’ve had MS. I saw a neural ophthalmologist when I was pregnant because I had optic neuritis then, but he told me that he couldn’t do anything because I was ‘super pregnant.’ I saw him again when Sean was 10 and I had an and I had a visual field test and then I saw him a couple years ago. My optometrist told me that he is retiring at my optometry appointment last July so this year when I see the neural ophthalmologist, it won’t be him.

My first neurologist and his nurse retired, and now my neural ophthalmologist in here I am, still sick. I think I have this whole Chronic Illness Care thing down. Not like I wanted it, but I can do it. My MS is getting serious now and I wonder how many doctors I will end up collecting when it’s all set and done?